Thursday, February 11

On Thursday, we'll be moving on to a series of classes on
Warring States thought. By far
the greatest portion of our textual database for Warring States China is
composed of works of thinkers of the "Hundred Schools," and
consequently, all studies of Warring States China lay great emphasis on
intellectual history.

We'll begin with an overview of the Hundred Schools (we won't
actually study 100; we'll look at five). As I'll describe, the reason that
intellectual pursuits became so popular during this period was because there
grew up a "market" for it -- a market almost as lively as the market for
military prowess. Sellers on this market were men who were known as
"wandering persuaders": people who hoped to sell their wares -- in the form of
ethical, political, or naturalistic doctrines -- at the courts of rulers who
were looking for an edge in the brutal competition of the times.
Demonstration of one's ability to offer new ideas -- or in many cases simply to
offer old ideas in glib ways -- could earn a persuader court rank and salary.
This was the goal of many of many people remembered historically as
"philosophical" types.

The first reading focuses on a more prosaic
type of court figure, who was a variant on the persuader model, and in a sense
basic to it -- the clever court advisor. These were men who gained stature
at court not through their doctrines, but purely through fine rhetorical arts,
put to use in the context of day to day decision making. These
non-philosophical persuaders were sometimes hereditary courtiers, but
increasingly, they came from the ranks of independent shi who studied
how to achieve rhetorical skill and put it to use. Their primary
"textbook," the Intrigues of the Warring States, survives, and
we can see in the tales preserved in this training manual the tools these men
used to make their way up in the court world of the Warring States.

The other two readings will introduce you to a new philosophical
school - Mohism, the first response to Confucianism - and the first defender of
Confucius's ideas against Mohist attack: the fourth century thinker
Mencius.